


the place i belong

by temerity (forsanethaec)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Autumn, Boston, Break Up, Christmas, First Time, High School, Injury Recovery, Letters, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Physical Therapy, Teen Romance, Travel, Washington D.C., infidelity of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 08:12:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2644541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsanethaec/pseuds/temerity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall and Louis meet stuck in an elevator during a city-wide blackout in Washington, D.C. They spend a night together -- right before moving to opposite ends of the country. And keeping in touch proves easier promised than done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the place i belong

**Author's Note:**

> based somewhat loosely on [the geography of you and me](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18295852-the-geography-of-you-and-me), a YA romance by jennifer e. smith. so they're teenagers in this, but it's really an AU where they are in high school, rather than a high school AU. more than anything it's about place, so i chose settings i knew well enough to write: D.C., boston, the physio unit niall's in, etc. apologies, thus, for the weird specificity... and for the lack of harry and zayn.
> 
> thanks to jamie flowersmaywilt for reading this super last-minute and telling me it was coherent, you're a sparkling precious gem; and to lucy psycholinguistic for encouraging and enabling as ever. and to her modly highness: all my love for letting me be a dick about my posting date! thank u!!
> 
> title is from #ready2run; gratuitous references to that song contained within.

// part one //

It starts with the elevator, plunging into darkness. Niall usually takes the stairs for just this reason, but he's meant to be taking it easy before the surgery. He feels like they just dropped five stories, though really all that's happened is they shuddered to a halt between the tenth and eleventh floors of his building. Gears grinding outside, cables creaking, no light.

Niall searches backwards with his body until he finds the corner of the lift and wedges himself there, heart leaping into action in his throat. There's another person in here, a boy about his age, but Niall's already forgotten his face. Brown hair, kind of slight, short, maybe. Rolled cuffs. He remembers that, seeing the guy's socks. They'd both been engrossed in their phones when they got in.

"Umm," comes the voice then. It's probably been three seconds. All of Niall's senses are racing as though he's on drugs. He grips the rail that runs around the sides of the elevator.

"Did the power go out?" the guy tries again. He's somewhere to Niall's left. Niall's eyes press into the blackness, seeking a flash of white beneath the turned-up hems of the guy's skinnies, something to hang on to, but he can't find it with no light.

"Did I lose you?" The voice has gone hesitant, like he's actually worried Niall had suddenly disappeared or passed out or been a figment all along.

"I'm here," Niall manages. Then there's a smartphone, illuminating a face from below. The boy peers at him, ghoulish and angular in an upward cast of blue light.

"I've got no service," he says. "I think I can call 911, though. Are you okay?"

"Fine," Niall gets out. He's looking into the guy's eyes, though, and it's helping. He pulls his iPhone out of his pocket with nervous fingers, not looking away, and turns on the screen. Emergency calls only. "I think the power did go out," he says dumbly.

The guy grins a little. "Yeah. Hang on a minute." He uses his phone to search out the control panel, jabs the emergency call button a few times. It makes a dubious little mechanical sound, somewhere in the ether outside the elevator. Then he calls emergency on his phone, looking a little startled when a voice answers, indistinct and tinny. 

"Hi," he says. "We're, um, stuck in an elevator?" A pause. "Yeah, we figured." Another pause. "Just two of us. We're okay, just -- yeah. Okay." He gives their address and says thank you and hangs up. 

"They sound busy," he says, frowning. "Said they'll send someone, though. Or let the building staff know or something."

"So -- we just wait?"

"I dunno, I guess so. I've never been stuck in a lift before," he says. His tone's a bit short, but to Niall's ears it feels friendly. He's dimly aware of the thud of his heart in his chest, still painful, in the background of how he's latched onto the only other person in this situation with him.

"Well," Niall says, and sinks down into the corner, hunched and tense. "I'm Niall, I guess." He sticks out his hand, into the darkness between the twin glows of their phones.

"Louis," the kid says, soft. He sits down too, cross-legged, and they shake. His hand is small and kind of delicate, the sheen of sweat on his palm belying his pulled-together demeanor.

"Should conserve battery, I suppose," he says, belatedly. His phone clicks and goes dark, and then Niall feels exposed, being the only light, so he clicks his phone off too. His fingers itch as soon as it's out, wanting the light back, but Louis is probably right about the battery thing.

"I get claustrophobic," he says, tight and quiet into their airless space.

"Oh," comes Louis' voice again. "Well, that's a tough fucking break, innit?"

It startles Niall into laughing. "Bit, yeah." He appreciates, distantly, that Louis had gone that route instead of something less friendly a stranger could ask, like, _you’re not gonna freak out on me, are you?_

His eyes are starting to adjust now, and he can make out the soft dark outline of Louis in the corner. His ears strain into the silence, brain searching fearfully into its other senses for lack of being able to see properly. There's some noise outside but nothing that sounds like rescue. He knows it's coming, must be. He's pretty sure there's a super in this building, at least, even though he never sees them.

"D'you live here?" Louis asks.

"Yeah. I'm on fourteen." Niall looks up at the ceiling, to his floor just out of reach.

"So thirteen, then," Louis says.

"I mean, yeah." Buildings in D.C. aren't taller than thirteen stories, but a lot of the older ones, like this one, skip thirteen in their numbering, a vestige of architectural design from decades prior. "Not superstitious, are you?"

"Oh, I'm very superstitious," Louis says, smiling. "Hope it might cancel out -- our luck already seems a bit black, here."

Niall laughs a bit, feeling it carve a little space out in his tight chest. "How about you?"

"We just moved in a couple of weeks ago. Dunno how long we'll stay, though."

"Why's that? What floor d'you live on?"

"Basement," Louis says primly. Niall's stomach squirms a little.

"Oh." The silent darkness between them feels solid, alive. "Is your dad the super?"

"Mum," Louis says, low smile just visible. "Keep asking questions, though, you're bound to get one sooner or later."

Niall's skin prickles a little, and he doesn't know why he's smiling or why this kid's strange, sharp manner is appealing but it is. "That's cool, though. Is she… you know, here? Coming to rescue us?” He tries to laugh like it’s a joke, but it’s not, and the sound comes out forced in the closed space.

“She’s not, actually.” Niall can see Louis’ mouth turn down. “She went up to New York for the weekend. She was supposed come back today, but.” He crosses his feet at the ankles, then uncrosses them, looking down. New York’s only four hours away, but Niall wonders how far the power outage goes, what the traffic might be like coming south.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Louis says, a little late.

“What’s she doing up there?”

“It’s where she met my father,” Louis says.

“Oh.”

“He’s not dead or anything.” Louis’ voice comes out harsh, and it makes Niall’s insides freeze up. “Just not around. She wanted to take their anniversary, though, go up there, do whatever it is she has to do.”

“I'm sorry,” Niall offers quietly.

“It’s okay.” Louis scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, like he’s been looking into a bright light, though it’s still nearly pitch dark in the elevator. “Anyway, like I said, not sure how long we’ll be here. A job’s a job, but this isn’t her favorite part of the country. Me, I’d rather be back in London with my sisters, but she doesn’t like to keep us in one place long. Dunno why exactly. We’ve been in America three years but we’ve not put down roots anywhere longer than six months or so. She just keeps getting new visas, trying new shit.”

Niall’s picking at a tear in the knee of his jeans as he listens. “Are your sisters with your dad?”

Louis nods, barely visible.

“How many?" Niall asks. "How come you came out here?”

“Four -- two and a pair of twins. I’m the oldest. And I just – wanted to go with my mum, I reckon. Keep her company ‘til she decides she can deal with the U.K. again. If she ever does.” He peers a little at Niall, smiling. “You’re a curious lad, aren’t you?”

Niall feels himself flush and is glad of the dark. He shrugs. “I’ll tell you my story, if it helps.”

“Sure.” Louis lets his head thunk back against the wall of the lift. “Not like I’ve got anywhere to be, is it?”

Niall smiles a little, feeling it ease the knot in the pit of his stomach. “Well, I’m here with my Da. Have been since I was 12 – he works at the embassy. He’s on business in Dublin right now, though. And my brother’s back there – in Ireland, I mean, with his family. Mum’s in London. And I’m gonna be a senior at Sidwell. Wait, d’you go to school?”

"Well, it's summer at the moment, Niall," Louis says. The warmth when he says his name creeps through Niall's chest, helping him breathe a little easier. "I will, though, if we stick around. Sidwell, though.” He laughs. “That’s where Obama’s kids go. Proper Washingtonian, you are."

Niall smiles, embarrassed for no reason. "I'm moving to Boston," he says. They’re both oversharing, it feels like, but it seems like the obvious choice. "For the semester. Doing physical therapy up there, at this -- place that does a thing." He flaps his hands like it's the explanation he doesn't feel like giving. 

"Okay," Louis laughs. "Why's that?"

"Got a bad knee. I have to have surgery next week."

Louis whistles, low. "Tough fucking break," he says, but it's more serious than it had been about the claustrophobia. 

Niall shrugs, shoulder-blades aching where they've been pressed into the plasticky wall of the elevator. "Gotta do it sometime," he says bracingly. Louis is looking at him, his outline smudgey and dim grey in the dark, spectral. Niall feels suddenly split open by that look, and it kickstarts his nervous heart like nothing else has so far.

That feeling reminds him they're still trapped, though. It's been maybe five minutes, but still. "D'you think they're coming?"

"You'll be okay, y'know," Louis says. "I can tell you're tough. Get through it together, won't we?" It's not flippant like it could be, but a little soft, a little serious. He's still peering across at Niall, all intent. Niall doesn't know what he's actually talking about, the elevator or, like, the surgery, or what. His brain's starting to feel a little scrambled.

On cue, he hears a thunk outside the doors. It scares him half to death before the voice filters in. “Guys?” It’s the doorman. “Hey, we’re gonna get the door open, you just stand back.”

They come through with a crowbar, and the cool air rushing in as the doors slide heavily open makes Niall feel faint with relief. They’re nearly level with the eleventh floor, and it’s an easy climb out. The doorman helps Niall up first, and there’s Louis’ hand at the small of his back too, steadying him. It makes his stomach swoop in a way that has very little to do with the fresh oxygen.

“Well.” Louis brushes off the thighs of his jeans theatrically when they’re back on solid floor, looking around. “Rather dark, innit?”

“It’s out all over the city,” the doorman tells them. He’s carrying extra flashlights, and he hands them out. “Something about a power plant in Virginia, that’s what they were saying on the radio. I had to get the old crank one out of your mom’s stuff in the boiler room.” He inclines his head to Louis. “We haven’t been able to get ahold of her,” he says gently. “Do you know when she’s gonna be back? Hindsight, I know, but kind of a rough time for her to take a day off.”

He’s really trying to be nice, Niall can tell – he’s known the guy long enough – but Louis bristles. “She’ll be back anytime,” he says. “She’s just on her way back from New York.”

“Okay,” the doorman says, taking a step back. “Well – I don’t really know how long this is all gonna be, but there you go. I’m just downstairs if you guys need anything.” He heads off into the dark stairwell with the beam of his flashlight bouncing off the walls.

The look on Louis’ face makes it obvious what he’s thinking as he considers the stairs: the eleven flights between him and his apartment, and the dark emptiness waiting there. It makes Niall’s heart melt a little.

“Come up with me, if you want,” he says. “We’ve got more flashlights, I think. And plenty of bottled water and shit.”

Louis gives him that shrewd, searching smile again. It makes him look older than he is. “Alright then.” He follows Niall up the stairs, either not noticing or choosing not to comment on his slight limp, and through the door of his place.

It’s lighter in here, since the midsummer evening’s just starting to fall outside, and there’s thin orange light streaming in from the west. “Wow,” Louis breathes. He makes a beeline for the windows. “Look at that view.”

Niall joins him. It’s a familiar sight: the Capitol and the spread of the Hill, residential on one side, all Mall and museums on the other, down the slope of Northwest from Niall's building and spotted with trees and fountains. There aren’t lights on in any of the buildings, though, or on street corners, no movement around escalators down to the Metro. Vehicle traffic’s at a dead stop in all directions and the promenade of Pennsylvania Avenue is choked with people, confused tourists and food service workers who just want to go home. Knots of Congressional staffers, looking lost without the use of their iPhones and the microchipped badges hanging around their necks.

Louis is staring at it all with his mouth slightly agape. “It’s pretty,” he says softly. “I haven’t gotten to see D.C. like this. Stuck down in the basement, we are.”

Niall doesn’t know what to say, so he retreats to the kitchen, feeling antsy with the promise of a strange boy in his apartment and his Da out of the country. There’s water in the lifeless fridge, and he opens it quick and grabs a few bottles, and some of the more easily eaten perishables while he’s at it. Cheese and leftover chicken and ice cream, already starting to drip. More flashlights and candles from a bottom drawer get spread out on the counter, too. 

“D’you want to have a picnic?” Louis asks. He’s at the breakfast bar, peering in through the cutout in the wall. Niall looks around.

“What, you want to go down to the Mall or something? In this?”

“Nah, but Mum’s got a key to the roof.” He waggles his eyebrows, and before Niall can respond or say anything about not wanting him to have to go all the way downstairs after all that, he’s off again, grabbing an extra flashlight as he bounds through the kitchen. 

“Meet you back here in ten!” he calls, and then he’s out the door. 

Niall’s ears ring in the silence once he’s gone. It’s been a whirlwind afternoon.

He sinks down against the kitchen counter and onto the floor, drained, suddenly, and drinks most of one of the bottles of water. It’s already getting hot without the A/C on – August nights in D.C. don’t fuck around. He still feels a little cramped now that he’s alone, flicking his iPhone on and off uselessly. The silence of the empty apartment and the distance of his dad presses in around him. It’s Monday, and school will start without him tomorrow. Bobby’s supposed to be back then, too, and they’re leaving to drive to Boston the day after, moving into their subletted South End brownstone until Christmas so Niall can do rehab for his knee at Boston Medical Center.

And despite all that looming ahead of him, Niall’s just sat here wondering what Louis’ deal is: if he’s enrolled in school yet here, if he’s able to keep up, moving around so much. If he’s a senior like Niall is.

Niall hasn’t really ever made real friends with a neighbor. He’s got plenty of people at school, Harry, Zayn, but they’re classmates, ex-pat kids with transplant D.C. parents like him. All his neighbors are old white dudes and high-powered younger women of untraceable ethnicity, all lobbyists and lawyers. Not peers like Louis. Not so interesting. Funny. Charming. Gorgeous.

The creak of the unlocked door swinging open startles him, and he flushes deeper than he already has in the heat when Louis comes back into the kitchen, sweat at his temples and the neck of his t-shirt where it’s sticking to the pit of his throat.

“Ready?” he asks, slightly out of breath. He’s got a keyring in one hand and the strap of a stuffed-full totebag in the other. Niall stares up at him, trying not to be obvious about the flippy thing his stomach is doing. He sticks out a hand with a cheeky smile, and Louis laughs and helps him off the floor.

“Ladies first,” he says, winking. He grabs the food and water Niall had pulled out and follows him out the door.

The stairwell is even hotter than the apartment, and Niall’s out of breath by the time they get to the emergency door at the very top.

“I haven’t ever been up here,” he says.

“Really?” Louis is fumbling for the right key. “I’ve not either, but you’ve lived here a lot longer than me.” He throws Niall a grin over his shoulder. “Would’ve brought a special someone up here by now if I was you.”

Niall blushes. “Eh, I dunno,” he says, waving his hands vaguely. Louis jiggles the key in the lock and then there’s a blast of lukewarm, stone-scented evening air hitting them in the face.

Louis spreads his arms wide, like he knew just how amazing it would be. And it is – D.C. doesn’t have the skyline of a place like New York, but it’s still distinctive, and right now completely dark. It’s like looking at a desaturated photograph of downtown, the Capitol without its usual floodlighting, all the little blinking red lights of diplomatic helipads and radio towers extinguished. The sun’s setting down the Mall, and everything’s soaked in blue and orange shadows, portending pitch-darkness to come.

“Never had anyone you’d want to show all this to?” Louis asks.

Niall looks over at him: he's pink-cheeked from running up and down the stairs, hair a little disheveled, familiar already just from the brief time they’ve spent together, and he looks expectant, like he’s banking on Niall’s answer. Niall bites his lip.

“No,” he says, “guess not, ‘til now.”

Louis’ face bursts into a grin. It sends a curl of warmth through Niall, an instinctive reaction to making Louis smile, wonderfully gratifying.

When Louis pulls a blanket out of his bag and spreads it out in a corner, where the limestone edging is bleeding onto the rough black lining of the rooftop, Niall starts to laugh.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” he says. Louis blinks up at him.

“Shut up,” he says, so affectionately it makes Niall’s toes curl. “Come sit.”

They lean against the inside of the building’s mantel together, knees drawn up, a measured space between them, and eat the cheese with crackers and pick at the chicken and pass the ice cream back and forth while night falls. Niall can still hear people down on the street, trying to work out how to get home without Metro trains or cell service, or just starting to hoof it uptown to their apartments.

“Are you worried about your Mum?” he asks. Louis gives a gruff shrug.

“Nah,” he says. “She can take care of herself.” He’s quiet for a minute. Niall’s sure the racing of his own heart is audible, over the filtered quiet of only people noise and cars honking at dead traffic lights, fourteen stories down. 

“Glad I found you, though,” Louis says finally. “Be weird to deal with this all by myself.”

“Yeah,” Niall says, looking at him, feeling like there’s millimeters between them. “Me too.”

They talk about school, and Niall finds out that Louis is a year older than him, but that he’ll be a senior too if he manages to start school this year, if they stay long enough. Louis wants to know about Boston and the surgery and everything. He wants to know what Niall likes about D.C., what he misses about Ireland from when he was a kid. He wants to know so much, and everything he learns he wants to tell Niall about himself, too. 

Niall’s never met someone who’s so instantly open, like he’s decided Niall’s a keeper and sees no reason not to make this so. Niall thinks everyone’s a keeper. He thinks Louis might be something else.

Louis looks up when there’s a lull in the conversation, just when the dusk tips over that deep-blue fulcrum from sunset into night. “Look,” he says on a breath. “Stars.”

Niall looks up. It’s perfectly clear, and there are more stars than he can ever remember seeing in the city. They usually aren’t visible at all through the light pollution and the summer haze, and even in the winter it’s rare. But from up here they’re sheltered, and there aren't any lights at all on Earth for blocks and blocks around, and the night sky is brilliant and bright.

“D’you know any constellations?” Louis asks.

Niall laughs a little. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Well, make one up, then. Show me something.”

Niall swallows. “Okay.” He sinks down until he’s lying on his back and can take a proper look, and he’s vividly aware of Louis settling in beside him, their bodies forming an angle on the blanket, shoulders brushing.

He searches for a familiar arrangement, Orion or the Pleiades or the Big Dipper. “Well,” he says, pointing with his outside arm so that he leans in to Louis a little bit, “that’s Polaris."

Louis hums, waiting for more.

"It's the North Star," Niall adds, self-conscious. "It's always there. Like, wherever you are, you can use it to find your way home.”

And now Louis is looking at him, rather than up at the sky. “You know before,” he says, “when I asked if you’d ever brought someone _special_ up here?” He puts an ironic little stress on the phrase, even though he’s quoting himself.

“Yeah,” Niall says. His mouth is rather dry.

“I _was_ fishing to see if you had a girlfriend,” Louis mutters, nudging Niall’s arm with his elbow. “Or – boyfriend, or platonic life partner, or –”

“No,” Niall says. “No, I.” But there’s nothing else to say. His eyes are locked on Louis’ face, so intent that he’s hardly seeing him, heart in his throat with how much he wants this to go where it seems to be heading. He's kissed people before, but he’s never wanted to do it quite this badly. He should probably express that out loud. 

But Louis is already turning onto his side, propped up on an elbow. “Alright,” he says, and he smiles a secret smile, one that narrows the lightless, blank world down to just this, the two of them on the roof under the stars. Niall’s hands are loose across his chest, and Louis reaches for him, laces their fingers together. His skin is hot and Niall can feel him trembling just a little, even though what he says next is perfectly confident: “So it's alright if I kiss you now."

Niall nods, breathless, eyes flitting between Louis’, and all of a sudden he wants to laugh for how silly and wonderful this is. But Louis’ mouth is already on his.

It is, without question, the most purely romantic thing that’s ever happened in Niall’s young life: the quiet going still around them, the gentle press of Louis’ lips. The sweet smell of him, like clean sweat and summer, how he’s got Niall’s hand clutched in his between their bodies. The stars above the only light.

Niall feels like he’s glowing when they pull apart, floating in the wake of it, gazing at Louis from a close distance. He darts his tongue out, tastes Louis on his lips and whispers his name.

“Hey,” Louis whispers back. “Is this weird? Are we – I’m not, like, cheapening it, am I?”

“What?”

Louis flushes a little, ducks his head. “Um. Nothing.”

Niall rolls over to face him, still holding Louis’ hand between them. “What does that mean, cheapening it? What’s to cheapen?”

“I don’t know,” Louis says. “Feels – it feels… a bit _big_ , is all.” It comes out quiet, a cracking whisper, and he rolls his eyes at himself. “Meeting you in this. Like this. I don’t wanna – I know you’re leaving, like, I don’t –”

“Hey,” Niall says. “I’m… this is nice,” and he lowers his eyes, smiling a little, still feeling the ghost of Louis’ lips on his, only the second boy he’s ever kissed and the first he’s known he really wanted to, even so soon after knowing him, even more for it. He's refusing to think of this ending before it even begins. He at least has to kiss Louis a little more before he gets to that point. “We don’t have to think about that, if you don’t want," he tries. "It could just be… like, this. I dunno.” 

Louis is smiling at him, something thoughtful in his eyes. He strokes over Niall's knuckles with a half-certain thumb. “You make it sound so fuckin’ easy,” he says, and leans in before Niall can respond.

They lie there on their sides, kissing until Niall’s lips are buzzing, his jaw aching, his hand tight around Louis’ between them. Louis feels more experienced than Niall is, calculated with his lips and his tongue, leaving Niall breathless and curling into him, heat in his stomach. It’s exhilarating and strange to do this up here, in the open air without fear of discovery, sheltered by the stone rim of the roof. 

Finally it stops, and they're just breathing together. Niall wants more, kind of, even though he's scared -- but he's realizing that Louis is a bit of a romantic. He seems to want to take this slow. Or -- maybe he doesn't want it to get too big, when they don't have any time. It hurts a little, thinking that Louis could be writing this off before it even starts. But Niall gets the instinct to keep that distance. To keep from getting hurt. 

"Wanna sleep up here?" Louis asks softly. "Reckon it'll be too hot inside." He shifts, arm under Niall's temple, peering at him. His gentle confidence with whatever this is is making Niall's head spin. 

"Okay," Niall breathes. 

He ticks it all off in his head for just a second -- he's got to start packing for Boston in the morning, track down his Da, leave Louis to his life. He's got to get back to reality, when the lights come back on or when the sun rises, whichever comes first.

Louis kisses him again, just a brush of his lips, asking for nothing, their bodies close. It's a warm night and there's no wind, and it's so comfortable to lie here with this boy he barely knows, a boy he feels like he's known a lot longer than an evening. Rather than anything else, that's what Niall falls asleep thinking about. 

*

Louis is gone when Niall wakes, alone on a roof in the blinding sun. He rolls around in the blanket for a second, wildly confused, before it all comes back. And Louis isn't there. Louis left.

There's a note in the totebag, abandoned next to their makeshift bed. It's a page torn from a notebook Louis apparently had in there, which he seems to have taken with him.

_hi nialler, sorry i left you up here!! had to go looking for mummy dearest. you can hang on to the bag, i don't need it. the door to the stairs should be open and if not congrats we're reenacting the hangover. call me or see you before you leave? xx louis_

He added his cell number and a silly face at the bottom. The cold of him leaving is being flooded with warmth again, all the way to Niall's toes. He sits there grinning for way too long, that incorrigible joy of _cute boy likes me back._

The power's still out downstairs, but it's daytime, so it's easy enough to make it back to his apartment. It's hot as hell inside, though, and Niall does little more than change his clothes and eat a peanut butter sandwich and fuck about with the light switches for a while, just in case, before he wanders down to the lobby. It's weird to be out and about on what's meant to be the first day of school, like he missed the train back to Hogwarts. Though he bets it's not happening with or without him, amid the blackout. 

Louis is nowhere to be seen, but Niall chats to the doorman for a bit, trying to get an update. There isn't one, really -- it's one of the longest, biggest blackouts the city's ever seen, and everything's shut down. Stores giving away food and water for free, just to get rid of it. Offering places for people to come in out of the sun. Even the President's given a little statement about it, a bit cheeky from a generator-lit press room down at 1600 Pennsylvania. 

He wanders a few blocks over to K Street, loping aimlessly through the equally aimless crowds in hopes of free sandwiches, but it's a wash save for some bottled water from a street vendor. When he comes back, he finds Louis in the lobby with a pretty, tired-looking woman who's got to be his mum. They're talking to the doorman and it looks kind of grim, but Louis brightens when Niall walks in.

"Hi," he says, meeting Niall halfway across the room, a safe distance away from the conversation the adults are having. Niall glances at them.

"Hi," he says, and he grins, can't help it, loves looking at Louis. "What's the latest?"

"Well, mum's back. She made it in just after I got back downstairs this morning." He actually winks, and Niall snorts with laughter, heart thumping pleasantly. "They're saying the lights should be back on later today or tomorrow, maybe. Is your dad gonna make it in, you think? Does the airport, like, even work when the power's out?"

"No idea," Niall says. "It's got to, doesn't it? I need to pack and stuff. Just gotta wait, I guess."

He shifts from foot to foot under Louis' pinning gaze. Talking about Boston, about parents, about the end of this has made him feel like he's accidentally stepped off a ledge, like he's freefalling. 

"Let me give you my number," he blurts finally. "So we'll both -- so you have mine too." 

Louis grins at him. "Lay it on me," he says. "Phone's dead, though." He pulls a little notebook out of his back pocket -- Niall recognizes from the pages that it's the one he'd used to write the note on the roof. There's plenty of scribbling visible in it as Louis flips to a blank page.

"Is it, like, your journal?" he asks.

Louis makes a face. "It's for song lyrics, mostly," he says. "I play some piano, not much else. But I like the bit with the words."

"That's sick," Niall says. "I play guitar, but I never tried writing much." 

"Match made in heaven, we are," Louis says, eyes sparkling. Niall flushes happily. He writes his number in Louis' book, then falters again, already back to thinking ahead. "So I'll -- we can just--"

"Stop," Louis says, putting up a hand, laying it lightly on Niall's chest. "I'm not doing this yet. I'll come up later, help you pack, okay? Gotta --" he glances over at his mum, who's been engrossed in conversation with the doorman and hasn't noticed Louis flirting. "Yeah. I'll just, I'll see you in a bit."

"Okay." Niall frowns. "Is everything cool?"

"Yeah," Louis murmurs, still looking over his shoulder. He turns back. "Pretend I'm kissing you on the cheek." Niall flushes. "Good," Louis says, smirking. "Go on, I'll catch you up." 

"Okay," Niall says again, stupidly, totally unable to use his brain around Louis. He lets their hands brush as he goes by, in a blaze of confidence by his standards, and starts to make the long trek up the stairs. 

He's got all his shit organized into two big suitcases later on, shirts rolled up, pairs of socks tucked into his trainers, the worn old roomy ones so he can fit braces into them if he needs to at physio. It's a bit of a shock to remember that the surgery's on Friday, just a few days away, so soon after they get into Boston. It'll take them the day to drive up tomorrow, another day to settle in, meet the doctor and the physical therapists. And then -- the thing itself. And then after. And then the rest of Niall's life with whatever comes out of it. 

There's a soft knock on the door. "It's open!" Niall calls. And then Louis is in his room.

He looks at his posters first, not saying anything, eyes skimming the tri-color on the wall, the Derby County jersey tacked up by the window, the Eagles poster and the guitar case in the corner. 

"You've been productive," he notes, looking over Niall's bursting suitcases. They're both sweating; it's stifling even with the windows open. Niall shrugs.

"I like packing," he says. "Is everything alright with your mum and stuff?"

"Yeah." Louis sits down heavily on the edge of Niall's bed, strewn with last-minute items, chargers and medical records and textbooks for the classwork he'll be doing online to stay on track for graduation. "They're not so happy she was gone when the blackout started. Guess it caused a bunch of issues with the boiler, or… something." He runs a hand through his hair, over his jaw as if there's stubble there, which there isn't yet, but Niall thinks it's sweet of him to pretend. "Not like she's qualified to deal with any of that shit anyway," he mutters. "I knew this wasn't gonna work out."

Niall doesn't know what to say. "Did you have to leave… where were you before this?"

"Philadelphia."

"Philly, okay. Did you have to leave Philly because her job didn't work out there?"

"Yeah." Louis kicks off his flip-flops, crosses his legs on Niall's bed. "Always how it goes, innit."

"That sucks." Niall turns to face him, leaning against the suitcase on the desk behind him. "I'm sure it'll be fine," he says. 

"And if not?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

Louis smiles a little and starts stacking up the things on the bed, setting them in piles on the ground. Niall pretends not to notice. "I think it's California next," Louis says. "If we do have to go. She fancies a bit of a road trip."

Niall whistles softly. "Long way," he says, and he's thinking of coming back here in December and finding the building empty of Louis, of this. "Either way," he says, "can we, like… can we keep in touch?"

Louis laughs. "Yeah, of course." He gazes levelly at Niall, while Niall fidgets against the desk, itching to drop into his lap. "Wish I'd met you sooner," he murmurs. "I'd be more keen on staying if you weren't leaving." 

Niall's heart breaks a little bit at that. It must be so hard for Louis to move so constantly, to have his expectations consistently crushed. That's what makes Niall cross the room, make the first move this time, standing in front of Louis and touching his cheek and leaning down to kiss him. 

It's hot even with the window open, the light stale city breeze seeking in, and Louis pushes his hands up under Niall's shirt straight away, filling the space between the loose vest and Niall's sweaty skin with his hands. 

"When's your dad due back?"

"Not 'til tonight." Niall's voice comes out rather husky. It's driving him crazy to stand up here with Louis gazing up at him, with Louis' palms roaming over his skin beneath his tank top, not knowing what to do besides keep his hands tucked into Louis' hair. 

"Okay," Louis says. "C'mere, then," and he scoots back on the bed, finds one of Niall's hands and tugs him down. 

So he's not so hesitant to take it there, Niall thinks, even if they've got so little time before they have to go their separate ways. He crawls over top of Louis, the joint of his knee creaking a bit, wondering whether this is the only time they'll ever get to do this. 

As soon as Louis' pulls Niall's shirt off for him, it becomes the furthest he's gone with a boy. He shivers, and again when Louis catches him doing it, his eyes bright and captivating. 

He looks over Niall's thin chest, wraps his hands around his sides, fingers slotting into the shadows of his ribs, then meets Niall's eyes again. Niall is trying to keep his breathing quiet, doesn't want to give himself away. 

"Is this okay?" he asks. 

"I mean, I started it," Louis murmurs. He smiles up at Niall, that low secret smile from the roof. "Yeah. I want to." He reaches up and strokes at one of Niall's nipples, flicking it with the blunt edge of his nail until Niall gasps brokenly. 

"Have -- have you ever --" he tries.

"What?" Louis laughs, setting his hands to Niall's waist now. "Anything?" 

"With a boy." Niall colors, feeling it spread across his chest. He drops down so he's sat across Louis' lap. "C'mon, now," he adds, before Louis can respond, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Louis pulls his tee off, and he's gorgeously tan, all soft and smooth, a sweet line across his stomach where he's bent toward Niall. Niall's mouth waters and he feels his face flame up even more, until he has to bury it in Louis' neck, hiding and kissing him there too, tasting salt. Louis laughs again, breathless, pulling Niall in. 

"I've done a bit," he says, while Niall kisses behind his ear, tries biting beneath his jaw, pleased when Louis tips his head to the side to give him access. "So eager," he mumbles. "Mm, yeah, keep doing that." His hands drop back to Niall's hips, holding him solidly, fingers splayed across Niall's skin and pressing in. 

"I mean, I could blow you," he says in Niall's ear, and Niall's breath hitches. 

"Christ, Louis." He draws back. "Yeah -- yeah."

Louis licks his lips, looking pleased. "Here, come lie here." They switch places and he takes his time unbuttoning Niall's flies, gives his bum a squeeze as he pulls the shorts down his skinny thighs. Niall's embarrassingly hard already, dick springing free as Louis tugs off his shorts. They're both sweat-slicked and the room is so, so still and quiet, even with the windows open, save the off-kilter street noise fourteen stories below and the plaintive beeping of a far-off smoke detector. 

Louis looks up at him through his lashes and then back down. He fists the base of Niall's cock like he knows what he's doing, and Niall can barely remember to breathe, stomach trembling, fingers tangled in the sheets beneath him. He spreads his legs a little, bending his knees, and Louis fits himself between them. 

He licks around the tip of Niall's dick, kissing it, lapping at the precome wetting his slit, and Niall draws a ragged breath. This is going to be over very quickly, he can already tell. Then Louis gets the head in his mouth and Niall has to close his eyes, body aflame. Louis sucks at him shallowly, with gentle, constant pressure, his tongue working flat over the underside of Niall's dick. 

He moves lower, just a little, then pulls off and slides his hand down with the wet at the top so he can work the base of Niall's dick with a slick palm, sucking him down again, twisting his wrist. Niall's hips are nudging up without his permission, little gasping whines finding their way out of his mouth. He opens his eyes again and stares, uncomprehendingly, at the pink seal of Louis' lips around him, at Louis' flushed cheeks and his hair, stringy with sweat over his forehead, at the curve of Louis' back and the soft way his waist folds above the waist of his joggers. He reaches down, pushes Louis' hair out of his face, cards his fingers through it and hangs on. 

Louis looks up at him, mouth still sliding up and down, his cheeks hollowing. Niall swallows thickly. 

"That's -- perfect, Louis, so good," he breathes. He can barely talk, can't handle any part of this, overwhelmed by the wet heat of Louis' mouth, the smell of him, the fact that they're in his room with the windows wide open, in this suspended reality where blowjobs from a guy like Louis are a thing that happens in Niall's life. Louis tongues at the vein on the underside of his cock and Niall swears gently, chest caving as he tries to catch his breath.

"I'm, ah--" He panics a little as he feels his orgasm start to rise in him, everything tightening up too soon, too fast. His fingers fumble over Louis' cheek. "Louis, fuck, I'm gonna come." Louis stays just where he is, mouth working over Niall's dick, and Niall tips his head back and groans desperately as he comes in Louis' mouth. 

Louis swallows it all, wiping his mouth and grinning a dirty grin. "Alright," he says, like it's settled, and stretches out over Niall's chest, putting his weight on him. He kisses him without asking, and it's filthy and Niall can't think for how much he wants it. He's buzzing, his dick wet and oversensitive and still a little stiff between them. He hisses when the fabric of Louis' trackies rubs over him.

"Sorry," Louis laughs. He strips off and then they're both naked, and the rise-fall of Niall's chest is harsh and irrepressible. Between his legs, Louis looks like he doesn't know what he wants to do next, like he wants to pack in so much more than they have time for. 

He surges forward again, kisses Niall hard, letting his dick rub up into the crook of Niall's hip, and then his hand is around Niall's and he's pulling it between them, putting it on himself. Niall gasps a little into his mouth, that first touch of his hot skin. He palms Louis, wraps his fingers around his dick, starts to pull him off while they keep kissing, while Louis rolls his hips slow into Niall's hand, whining in the back of his throat. 

Niall flips his wrist to get a better angle, and it's like wanking off but backwards, easy enough, and more so when he cups the back of Louis' head and breaks the kiss so he can just press their foreheads together, holding him in place, jacking him off in earnest now. Louis' breath is harsh in the space between them, and his thighs are shaking. Niall's mostly hard again already. Louis notices. 

"Do us both," he breathes, shifting his hips up. "C'mon, those big hands," he grins against Niall's jaw, all teeth, and Niall laughs, breathless.

"Only bigger than yours, innit," he mumbles back, but he gets his hips in line with Louis' and fists their cocks together, fumbles for a decent rhythm, and the hot slick slide of Louis' skin against his is incredible, has him moaning in seconds, clutching Louis closer. He's forgotten now that he's leaving tomorrow, that he only met Louis yesterday. All he knows is this, having this boy against him in his bed, their clothes on the floor, the windows open and the sun streaming in. 

"Louis," he gasps, "Lou, fuck." 

"Yeah," Louis says into the juncture of his shoulder. He mouths at the skin there, hips punching up with the rhythm of Niall's hand, too far gone for banter now, which Niall takes as a compliment. He finds Louis' mouth again, sucks on his lower lip, bites at it, his mouth sloppy and careless.

"Fuck," Louis breathes, harsh, "just, just like that, Niall -- I'm--" and he comes in the middle of his own sentence like it's a surprise to both of them, crying out a little in the back of his throat. He jolts against Niall, shuddering through it. 

"Jesus," Niall gasps. He tips his head back again, lets Louis go and gets himself off in 10 seconds flat with quick, rough pumps of his hand while Louis pants against him, all curled up.

Louis is watching him as he comes again, so quick. It burns in his nerve endings, knocking the wind out of him. When he opens his eyes Louis is blinking at him, his body loose and warm against Niall's like a contented cat.

"You alright?" Louis asks. 

"Yeah." Niall is still breathing a bit heavily. He looks down at Louis, and they start to laugh at the same time, until Louis lets his head drop onto Niall's chest, grinning into his skin. 

"You're a proper mess, mate," he says, touching Niall's stomach beside where he just came.

"I know." Niall dislodges himself sluggishly from the bed, finds his shorts on the floor and pulls them on again, knowing full well Louis is staring at his arse. "Be right back."

He cleans himself up in the bathroom, staring at his reflection in the mirror. 

_What are you doing_ , he thinks, _you're leaving tomorrow and he'll probably be gone long before you come back. What's the point of this, when you probably won't see him again? Why even bother?_

But he knows the answer. He likes Louis, immediately and completely. Likes kissing him and laughing with him enough to do it even if it's got an expiration date. Or at least, likes it too much to stop.

 _It's gonna hurt_ , his reflection tells him sternly up in his head. 

"Shut up," he mutters, and heads back to his bedroom. 

Louis has his joggers back on and he's cross-legged in Niall's bed, leaning back against the windowframe to catch the breeze. Niall doesn't bother putting on his shirt, either. He sits down on the bed next to Louis, a little self-conscious.

"God, it's bloody hot," Louis grumbles. "Are you finished packing? What now?"

"I dunno," Niall says. "Dad'll be back in a few hours, if all goes to plan. Which it probably won't, but either way." He swallows. "Hitting the road tomorrow." 

Louis nods. "So promise me something, then." 

"Yeah," Niall says, and though he tries to hold it back: "Anything." It's completely unironic, to the point where he blushes a little. And it makes something falter across Louis' face, like it's an effort to smile and go on. 

"Just write me, okay?" he says. "Or text me, assuming the power ever comes back. Call me, even, send me smoke signals, I don't care. Tell me about physio. Keep me sane, alright? Til you get back?" He swallows. "I don't really have anyone else here," he murmurs. 

Niall's heart in his throat makes his laughter come out a little choked up. "I will if you do," he says. "I'll be going crazy just as well in Boston. Making friends with old people in hospital." 

"I wanna hear all about them," Louis says, smiling properly now. They sit there, and Niall can already feel the distance creeping in. The knowledge that, if history is any judge, Louis won't actually be here when Niall gets home. 

"I will," Niall says again. "I'll keep in touch. I promise."

"Good. Me too." Louis' fingers curl in his lap, and then he leans forward and kisses Niall lightly. Niall's eyes flutter shut, helpless. Every moment is another he can't get back. 

He'd been supposed to hang out with Harry and Zayn tonight, to hear about the first day of school or lack thereof. They'd wanted to say bye for the semester, but they hadn't actually arranged anything, and neither of them lives in walking distance or even in D.C. proper. And they can't text or call. Niall supposes it's a lost cause. 

"They're gonna to try to visit for a weekend sometime," he tells Louis in the living room later on, after sunset. They've got candles all around, flashlights standing on end and shining onto the ceiling, and they're sat on the rug playing round after round of poker while Niall waits for his Da to get home and Louis waits to decide his mum's probably done with whatever she's doing out in the building. Attempting to fiddle with people's water meters and other broken things, most likely. They're betting with coins from the big jar in Niall's room -- currencies from all over, a perk of having a diplomat dad. "But Harry's the only one with his license and his mum'll barely let him drive down the block, let alone eight hours away, so I dunno."

Louis laughs. "I'm sure you'll make friends up there. Boston's a big place."

Niall shrugs. "Not that hard to make friends, I mean, but -- I kinda like the ones I have, too." He glances up, like, _including and especially you_ , and it makes Louis grin to himself. Niall really loves making him happy, so much so fast that it's a bit dizzying. 

Finally Louis looks at the analog clock on the wall -- going on 9 p.m. -- and says he'd better get back. 

"Will I see you in the morning?" Niall asks.

"You tell me. What time are you leaving?"

"We were planning on nine, if my Da ever shows up. All this, he'll probably wanna go earlier. We've gotta be there to move into the brownstone either way."

"Who's living here while you're away?" 

"No one really. He's gonna be up and down. Renting it out to embassy folks by the week when he's up with me." 

"Oh. Cool." 

"Just... meet me in the lobby?" Niall says. "Worth a shot. At nine if you can." 

"I'll do my very best," Louis says. He stands up, hopping delicately over their minefield of candles and flashlights and piles of pennies and pounds. Niall walks him to foyer. It's dark there like it had been in the elevator, and Louis is little more than a soft grey outline and a pair of sharp blue eyes. Two lights that never go out. 

"If I don't see you--" Niall starts.

"God, will you shut up?" Louis says, grabbing compulsively for Niall's hand. "I'll see you. And we'll talk while you're gone and then I'll see you again. Somehow. And everything will be fine. Don't talk shit." 

It makes Niall laugh, though inside he's despairing. Inside it's as if Louis is already gone, fading, leaving an empty space behind, and he wants to make Louis deal with that, but he can't. 

Instead he pulls him into a hug, squeezes his eyes shut, his nose pressed into Louis' neck. Louis kisses him again for a long time as he pulls away,stepping on Niall's toes to make himself taller. There's nothing about him that isn't endearing, and if there is Niall won't have time to find it out. 

*

Bobby drags his suitcase through the door just before midnight, when Niall's lazing in the middle of the living room with his guitar and a plate of Pop-Tarts and the melting candles, staring out the window at the dark city. Louis' presence is radiating from the basement, but Niall's not holding out hope for the morning. He knows shit's going to be hectic, and Louis has his own life. 

"So," Bobby says, coming into the dark room and smiling down at Niall's weird set-up. "Ready to go?" 

Niall stands up and hugs him. "Whenever you are," he says.

"You all packed? Did the lads make it to school today, or what?"

"No idea," Niall says. "I sent them a carrier pigeon, but I didn't hear back." 

Bobby laughs. "They don't make carrier pigeons like they did in my day, that's for sure. Well, I'm dead on my feet but I'm still up for a drive tomorrow. We can switch off a bit if you like, as long as you're ready to take the fall if we get pulled over."

"Don't you have diplomatic immunity?" 

"That's true! Good lad. This is gonna be a laugh." He touches Niall's shoulder. "You ready, though? Really ready?"

"Yeah," Niall says. He knows Bobby thinks he's worried about the surgery, but Niall's had plenty longer to come to terms with that than he has with the past 24 hours. He considers, very briefly, telling his dad about Louis. "Ready as I'll ever be," he says instead, and that's it. 

In the morning, Niall wakes slow and ragged like he's been in a coma. The dawn is grey outside, clouds for the first time in days, and it sounds like all the electronics in the apartment are staging a riot -- beeping, clamoring, demanding attention. Power's back, then, and his first thought is that it probably means Louis will be tied up helping his mum and won't make it to see them off. 

They clean out the fridge, drop everything down the trash chute, unplug all the appliances as soon as they've been turned back on. The apartment's quieter than it was in the outage when they're finished and standing at the door with their suitcases. Niall has his guitar strapped to his back, his computer and his phone with a couple hours' charge on them to get him started. 

Washington is groggy outside, no one ready to return to normal life. Niall's not, certainly. He's going to miss it here. He's only been to Boston once, earlier this summer to check out the hospital and the brownstone, but he's skeptical about the idea of a winter with more than half a foot of snow, or a city with buildings over thirteen stories. 

Louis isn't there when they get downstairs just after nine. Bobby's had the valet bring the car around, and they're loading up their stuff while Niall stands there hopelessly, staring around. He'd sent a first text that went unanswered and he even runs down to the dingy basement to knock on Louis' door, a last-ditch effort, but there was no one home. They're probably out somewhere in the building, or a million other places. Maybe Louis didn't even remember.

Niall's got a pre-stamped postcard in his pocket, a blank one he found while he was doing some last-minute tidying in his room this morning. He'd bought it in Boston the week they were there. It shows the distinctive downtown skyline from the Charles River, the sky bright blue, sailboats clustered in the water along the Esplanade. In script across the photo: Wish you were here! 

He scribbles Louis' apartment address on it, signs his name with a heart, feeling ridiculous, and jams it in the mailbox by the front door. It's 9:15 a.m., and the lobby is empty, and his dad is calling to him outside. 

So Niall leaves.

// part two //

He's on his back at physio, phone above his face and legs in the air, when he gets Louis' latest text. It's not what it looks like. He thinks Louis would laugh if he could see him, and the feeling of thinking about that almost makes him drop the phone on his nose.

He doesn't, though, just shifts under the nagging, rhythmic clench of the electrodes gummed onto his knee, poking gently at his deadened muscles. The surgery was three weeks ago, and Niall's barely gotten started with physio, has mostly just been doing little exercises and electro stuff like this to start with. The meat of why he's here -- a few-of-a-kind machine involving a harness and a treadmill and a hands-on team of therapists -- won't start until the end of the month. 

The text is shorter than the ones Louis' been sending him for the past three weeks -- a little exchange every few days, usually a funny story or a picture of something strange he saw on the Metro on his way to school, which he's started. A couple of times, just, _Miss you._

Today it's as simple and even more gutting: _Soooo mum lost her job_

Niall's heart sinks.

_N: :( :( :( what happened_  
 _L: The blackout thing sealed it. Knew it wouldn't last_  
 _N: what ya gonna do???_  
 _L: Hittin the road like someone I know ! but… Cali bound like I said_  
 _N: whoa yea! far…_  
 _L: Yeah._  
 _N: what abt school??_  
 _L: Lol yeah. Gonna wind up having to get my equivalency at this point. don't think you're allowed to be a super duper senior_

Niall could laugh at that, but he feels a little knotted up inside. It's such shit that Louis is being dragged along with his mum in this, keeping him from graduating. Though he supposes Louis could be back in London doing life per normal if he wanted. So there's must be part of him that kind of likes it, or that feels like it's necessary, for whatever reason. Niall could ask him about that, but it seems like a lot for a text. 

This is their problem now, he thinks; too much unsaid, over too wide a gap. 

_N: so whats in CA for your mum_  
 _L: Well she's gonna look for work on the way or else her old roommate from uni lives in San Francisco so we'll just go there and idk_  
 _L: what are you doing?_  
 _N: well I'm lying on my back… ;p jk they are doing things to me with electrodes_  
 _L: Sexy ;)_

Niall stares at his phone, cheeks flushed. He glances over at his PT, but she's with another patient. 

Louis doesn't seem ready to really talk about it, the upheaval and all, though it's hard to tell. They've had one phone call since Niall left Washington and it was awkward and strange. It's just hard to _get_ to Louis, to remember that he's real when he's no longer right in front of Niall. As if the 24 hours they'd spent together had been a dream. 

_N: when do you leave ?_  
 _L: tomorrow_  
 _N: damn_  
 _L: I know :(_  
 _N: send me a postcard from the open road ? haha_  
 _L: I will. Still have yours :) and I'm keeping that promise if you are. x_  
 _N: i will !_

But it all feels woefully insubstantial, like Louis is already slipping farther away than he was to begin with, and Niall knows they aren't going to talk about it. He doesn't even know what's to talk about -- what they are, or can be now. He doesn't know how to get back what they had in D.C. Maybe they can't. 

He's thought it before, already in the three weeks since they met and parted and he had his knee cut open and then embarked on his weird new bit of life up here: that maybe by the time this is all over, Louis will be nothing more than an slightly achy memory. 

Liam walks into the gym then, on cue. He waves to Niall, smiling wide, and Niall waves back, wheeling his legs a bit in greeting. It makes Liam laugh. He's easily amused and his smile's way too big for his face, his eyes going squinty at the corners. It's part of what endeared Niall to him straightaway. 

Liam is a senior at a high school in the city, here working off a basketball injury -- something about his hamstring that Niall doesn't care to think too hard about. He hasn't told Louis he's made a friend, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't know why. Liam's here, in person, two out of the four days that Niall is. He's friendly and handsome and easy to talk to, unintimidating. And there's just enough of Louis in him, that thread of mischief and a bit of confidence, that makes Niall's heart hurt a little when they're talking, and makes him not want to stop. 

Louis hasn't texted back -- there's not much else to say. It's already hard to fill the space between them, and it's only growing deeper with Niall up in Boston and Louis striking out west. Without a name for what they are besides saying, _wish you were here._

Niall doesn't even know what he wants instead -- Louis with him, in his life, a hopeless prospect. Each without the other on their own separate tracks, which intersected for a moment at random and now are diverging again. 

*

Boston is glorious in the fall, and Niall's taken to it quickly, especially with Liam to show him around. He motors about on his forearm crutches, eating sandwiches and doing schoolwork at the incredible bakery two blocks over from the hospital and driving around with his dad when he's free. They go to a rowdy Red Sox playoff game and he sits in the handicapped seats, they go to the Museum of Fine Arts and Harvard and the Common, they drive the Riverway to watch the trees change colors. They get a nice dinner in the North End to celebrate a month in the city, and Niall thinks of the postcard he left for Louis in D.C. He sends a picture with a smiley face, hoping Louis will get the reference. 

Louis isn't texting him as much now that he's set out on his cross-country trip. Niall gets Snapchats from him sometimes, a flash of highway or a road sign in West Virginia, then Tennessee, then further. Once, a surreptitious selfie with Louis' mum behind the wheel in the background. Niall had screenshotted that one, grinning to himself. 

He'd never talked to Louis' mum, but Louis tells him some about their bonding activities. Tells him about having speakerphone chats with Louis' sisters back in London, or about Jay's bad driving and all their endless fast food choices and failed bids for odd jobs in town after town across the country. Nashville one week -- Niall gets a postcard there -- then Kansas City. Beyond. 

Niall wonders if Jay ever asks Louis who he's texting when he does it. Bobby doesn't ask. Bobby chalks most everything Niall does up to him being a normal teenager who does weird teenager things. 

Liam asks one day, though, in Flour after they're both out of an appointment. They'd stolen a wheelchair from under their motherly PT's willfully ignorant nose and he'd rolled Niall over, popping wheelies all the way with Niall's crutches out like javelins, laughing their heads off and alarming passers by. 

"So," Liam says, "who is it that makes you get that look on your face when they text you?" He tries to drink some of his raspberry seltzer to fill the awkward space the question creates, but it's all ice, and his straw rattles conspicuously. Niall pretends not to notice. Louis has just popped up on his phone for the first time in two weeks: _Texas sucks :( wish I was back east._

 _I wish you were here with me_ , Niall thinks, but he doesn't send it. "It's just a friend from back home," he says, still frowning down at the text. 

"Mhm," Liam says. "Friend."

Niall looks up at him. "You know something I don't, Payno?"

Liam shrugs. "It just makes you look kind of sad, that's all. You don't always look sad when you get a text. It's not like all text messages make you sad, like, as a rule."

"You don't know that. I could have a phobia."

"Just saying," Liam says. He's fidgeting a little. "Are you busy tonight?"

Niall laughs. He puts his phone away; Louis will still be wherever he is when Niall has time to think about a proper reply.

"No," he says, "when am I ever busy? I sleep, I do homework, I go to physio. I hang out with you at this bakery. That's my whole life."

Liam looks pleased by that, and something flips a bit in Niall's stomach. He feels like he knows what's coming and he's got no clue what he wants to do about it.

"There's something I wanna show you," Liam says. "My favorite spot in the city."

"Where's that, then?"

"It's a surprise. But if you can get yourself to the green line at, like, seven or so, I'll take you there." 

He waggles his eyebrows, and Niall laughs. "I hate taking the T," he says. "I'm shit at surfing on crutches and even more shit at asking for someone's seat."

"Fair. I'll pick you up, then."

Niall steals a bit of bacon from the ruins of Liam's BLT and points it at him, trying to be chill as he says, "Now, Liam, is this a date?"

Liam straightens up a bit like he'd been expecting the question, which makes Niall worry even more. "I mean, it could be," he says, seriously. "D'you want it to be?"

Niall has absolutely no idea what he wants. He's thinking of Louis and picnics on the roof and a night and afternoon that seem desperately remote, thinking of Liam here in front of him, solid and present and asking, just asking the question, what does Niall want? 

"Can I tell you after?" he asks weakly. Liam smiles sideways. It seems like it's enough for him, but Niall feels like such a prick.

"Works for me," Liam says. "Hey, I've gotta go." Niall looks over his shoulder out the window; Karen's waving from her Volvo on the corner. "See you tonight?"

"Yeah." 

Liam squeezes his shoulder as he goes, leaving Niall feeling warm and confused and awful. He sits alone at his table in the packed cafe and texts Louis back, _bostons better, come here !_

He's not, in fact, feeling very exclamation point-y, but some things are hard to turn off. There's no reply after that, so he calls his dad for a ride. He needs to return this wheelchair, and he needs to think about what he's doing, juggling Louis, further and further away, with Liam, who seems only to be getting closer. 

*

That night, Liam brings peppermint hot chocolate from Starbucks, even though it's still pumpkin season, and drives them into the west end of the city -- out the artery of Commonwealth Avenue through BU and close to the city limits. He pulls off on a tree-lined neighborhood street that's only a couple of blocks in from the thoroughfare but feels very secluded.

"Amory Park," Liam says. "Aside from that one bit of the red line where you get to look at the skyline crossing the river, you know where I mean--" 

Niall nods. He's fallen into step with Boston easily in the six or so weeks he's been here. They've flown by, and it's kept him wondering what'll be on the other side -- if this could pass so quickly, if he could heal so much faster than he'd expected to. He's already onto a bit of treadmill work and the days are getting colder. 

"--this is my favorite place to see the city from," Liam finishes. "Wanna go up that hill if you can manage it." The park is kind of bowl-shaped, a baseball diamond and running track and field cradled by steep grassy slopes. Niall chuckles, shifting on his crutches. 

"I swear to Christ you're worse than therapy sometimes," he says. "Are you gonna carry me?"

He expects Liam to banter back at him, but he just goes for Niall's waist, cavalier as anything, and sweeps him off his feet. Niall squawks, laughing and barely hanging onto his crutches as Liam fireman-carries him up the hill on a charge. He sets him down gently in the dry grass, ruddy-cheeked and grinning. 

"Yes," he says succinctly, and plops down on the ground next to Niall, their knees brushing. Niall grins at him a bit helplessly. Liam's sweet, and he's trying, and Niall doesn't know what to do. 

The view is good, too, the far-off tops of the Pru and the Hancock and the rest of downtown visible over the trees at the edge of the field. The sunset is bleeding out across the sky from behind them, turning everything pink. It's cold but not uncomfortable out, and quiet, too, though not enough that Niall feels like they're the only two people that exist in the universe. That was with someone else.

"Niall," Liam says after a while. Niall turns, and Liam's hand is on his knee, gentle over where he knows there's new scar tissue, and he's leaning in. 

"Can I?" he asks, quiet. His breath is minty, close to Niall's lips, and in the short time he's known Liam -- longer by far than he ever knew Louis, he thinks out of bad habit -- he's never seen him look quite like this. More than nervous or cautious, he's vulnerable, and the last thing Niall wants is to hurt him. 

So he kisses him, and it's sweet and romantic and memorable, if Niall's honest, and Liam smells really good, and his big warm hand on Niall's knee is a comfort. It's nice to kiss someone again, to be wanted. Louis hasn't texted him back all day. It's how it goes, little pieces, few and farther between with every passing day. Not enough to live on. 

Niall touches Liam's face, feels the hint of stubble there, and leans into him. The longer he kisses Liam, the easier it is to pretend he doesn't feel a little sick in the pit of his stomach for doing it.

*

His dad's down in D.C. for the week, but Niall still lets Liam leave him at his door with a hesitant kiss and a promise they'll see each other the day after tomorrow. He crutches into the brownstone, motors down the carpeted hall, makes tea and sits down at the kitchen table. Their view is only of the back garden and the backs of neighboring buildings -- all brick, like D.C., but it's weird to live low to the ground. Niall feels like he's haunting some big old mansion, all wood banisters and little ivy-covered alleys. If they were up higher they could see the rest of the tree-lined South End, the Symphony district beyond that, the high-rise dormitories at Northeastern. But the brownstone's only a couple blocks from the hospital, and Niall gets himself there as a warm-up almost every day.

He looks out the window, remembering Liam's hopeful lips on his and the way Louis had looked in his bed back at home, shirtless and flushed, leaning back beside the open window and smiling in a way that had pinned Niall in place for one full day. 

He pulls out his phone. There's a text from Liam already: _tonight was nice :) soooo was it a date or what_

Niall can't bring himself to flirt, and can't bring himself to decide, either. He knows not answering will be worst of all, though, so he sends, _you can throw me over your shoulder n carry me up a hill anytime payno_ and rolls his eyes at himself.

Then he calls Louis. 

He thinks it's going to go to voicemail -- what time even is it in Texas? -- but Louis picks up on the fourth ring. 

"Hey, man," he says, as easy as that. His little voice is the same as the last time they talked, weeks ago, and Niall's not expecting the rise of emotions at hearing it. 

"Hey," he says, managing not to sound choked. "How's it going?"

"I'm alright. What's up? Been a while." 

"Yeah," Niall says. "I know. I don't know why we don't -- yeah. It's good to hear your voice."

"Yours too," Louis says, and it sounds like he means it. "What are you doing?"

"I'm in the brownstone. Just got home."

"Oh yeah? You go out with your dad or something?"

Niall bites his lip. He's called to talk about Liam, is the thing -- can't go forward in limbo like this, without something of a label for him and Louis. But he doesn't want to do it yet. Wants this to last a little longer as it is. 

"Or something," he says, and before Louis can call him out for being evasive, he says, "Where in the world are you?" 

"We are in… Arlington, Texas. Home of… I don't know. It's near Dallas. Mum's got a friend here, they're out together right now. We're staying in their guest house while she looks for work, but if it doesn't pan out soon I think we're gonna roll on. Don't want to take advantage." 

"Are you, like… doing okay?"

Louis laughs, a bit hollow. Niall wants to see him so badly, wants to know if he's pacing around or sitting on the edge of whatever makeshift bed he's sleeping in, wants to know what the sky looks like in Texas, wants to know everything. "I'm hanging in there," he says heavily. "You don't have to worry about me, Nialler. I'm used to this shit." 

"I know it isn't easy," Niall prods gently. There's a pause.

"No," Louis says. "It isn't. But it's my choice, innit?"

Niall thinks that being conscious of your choices and being sure they're what's best for you are very different things, but he doesn't say this out loud. He might, if Louis was here. But if that was true, a lot of stuff would be different. 

"Suit yourself," Niall says, and he doesn't mean for it to sound dismissive but that's the trouble with phone calls. "So where next, if not -- what was it?"

"Arlington. And I don't know, I think the Southwest somewhere. Denver? Seems far, I dunno."

"You're farther every time I talk to you," Niall says, smiling a little. There's a basic comfort that comes from having Louis in his ear, even if it's hard and strained and not imperfect. 

"I know," Louis says softly. "I keep moving, and you keep staying where I'm not." 

There's a lump in Niall's throat without warning, and Louis keeps talking over his silence.

"I've been thinking about you, you know?" he says. Niall can hear his reluctant little smile, and he feels warm and sad all over. "It's such shit to move every two weeks, I'm never gonna make a new friend again. You'll be my last one."

Niall laughs a little, loosening the knot. It'd be another good moment to bring up Liam, but he doesn't do it, and before he thinks of what to say instead, Louis is asking about physio, then schoolwork and if Niall's friends ever wound up coming to see him (they haven't), and they get off topic for a while.

Finally there's a lull, and Niall swallows. "Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"What are we doing?" Niall crosses his bad knee over his good one, practices bending it, extending and lowering his calf to distract himself. 

"What d'you mean, what are we doing?"

"I'm, like, seeing someone." It comes out before he means it to, and he winces, shutting his eyes. "Well, not -- I mean, a little," he adds, far too late to soften the blow. Louis hasn't said anything. "This boy I met at physio. That's where I was, earlier tonight, I was... I reckon we were on a date. I dunno. But it wasn't nothing, and that's why I called, I just -- I didn't feel right, going much of anywhere else with that until I talked to you."

It's still silent on the other end of the line, and Niall panics a little. "Louis?"

"I'm here," Louis says, and Niall doesn't know how his voice can be so stony and level when two thousand miles away, Niall feels like he's falling apart at the seams. 

"Okay," Niall says, and then when Louis is still maddeningly quiet, he says, "it's just that we never said -- we never decided what this was, and--"

"We slept together--" he laughs a little, coldly -- " _and_ had sex, and promised to keep in touch 'til we saw each other again," Louis says. "I kissed you goodbye, Niall. What do you want, a promise ring?"

It stings so badly that Niall can't speak for a long moment. 

"No," he starts slowly, "I just was hearing from you less and less, and when I left you were still in D.C., and now you're in Texas, and -- you don't even know where you're going."

"I'm sorry my life isn't as perfectly figured out as yours."

"That's not what I--"

"No, I get it," Louis says over him, and his voice is sharp like the blunt side of a knife, like he can't bring himself to break the skin but still wants to leave a mark. "I'm not there and I don't know when I will be. I get why you don't want to hold out for that. Don't wanna wait around. It's fine."

Niall squeezes his eyes shut against the tears welling up. "I do, though," he says, desperate, "that's just it, Louis, I really want to wait."

"For what, though?" 

"I don't know, for... " 

"For me to come back? For us to go to college together?" He laughs again, mirthless. It breaks in the middle. "I'm probably not even graduating, Niall." 

Niall doesn't trust himself to speak. 

"You know your boy in Boston's not gonna follow you home, either," Louis adds, miserably, kicking him while he's down. Niall flinches. 

"Just tell me, then," he says, and his voice is harder than he's expecting, going flinty to match Louis'. "Tell me if you wanna try to make this -- if you wanna try, at all, any harder than we have been. Reckon that's all I'm asking." 

Louis is quiet for a while. "Maybe…" And then there's another beat, all the air gone from the room and Niall's lungs and the infinite space between them. "Maybe we shouldn't," he says softly. Niall hates himself for the shock he feels. As if this wasn't coming all along. "If it's gonna be like this. If we don't even -- if we can't even plan on seeing each other again. I don't know. Maybe it isn't worth it."

Niall draws a shuddering breath. If Louis can tell that he's crying, he doesn't say anything, and there's another long stretch.

"You know, what I want is for you to be happy," Louis says, short, like it's the worst thing in the world. "And I'm not gonna help make that happen. Just glad you've found someone who is, I really am."

"Louis--"

"I should go." He sounds exhausted, like he's been up for days.

Niall tries to breathe steadily.

"That's it, then," he says after a long, shellshocked moment. 

"Seems like it." 

Silence, in which Niall has the insane instinct to go, _you hang up first_. Before he can say anything, Louis sighs, a rush of static, and says, "Bye, Niall." And he's gone.

Niall sits there staring at his phone, uncomprehending. In a million fantasies of how that conversation went, he'd never really let himself think it would end it. Like he could call and confess about Liam and somehow that would fix it all instead of killing it. Like he could have said, _it's shit and I want it, I want you, I want to really try_ , like he could have known while they were talking that that was how he felt, instead of now, in the void beyond it. 

Liam's texted him while he's been on the phone: _carefulllll before i take you up on that :)_ , referring to carrying Niall up a hill, which right now may as well have happened in someone else's life. 

Liam is everything Niall should want -- he's grounded and stable and most of all, he's here, at least for now. And so what if it doesn't last? It can be a fling, or even if it's not, Boston's a hell of a lot closer to D.C. than so many other places. And he and Liam are both applying to colleges for next year, here and abroad. It could be normal. It could be good.

Niall's still looking at his phone, willing it to ring, willing Louis to call back. He can't reach out again, not after all that. 

But the call never comes, and so Niall goes to bed. There's a bit of cork on the wall above his dresser, a few keepsakes he'd brought from home tacked up. In the center is the last postcard he got from Louis -- there've only been a few, despite their best, most romantic intentions, amid the tempting convenience of text messages. It's the one from Nashville, another downtown tableau with the familiar _wish you were here_ emblazoned across it. _I really do_ , Louis had written on the back, with the scrawl of his name and his favorite silly face. Niall remembers without looking. He remembers everything. 

He thinks of taking the postcard down, but instead he just falls asleep staring at it. 

*

Niall wakes up late and groggy the next day, emotionally hungover. There's not as much light in the brownstone as in their apartment in D.C., and it makes it hard to get out of bed, hobbling to his crutches and setting off into the cool, empty house. 

He does an AP Stats quiz on his computer over a midday bowl of cereal, his mind blank, and then he sets off out the door. Physio's another good excuse not to think, and he pushes himself too hard once he's up on the treadmill, telling them he can go faster and faster, barely keeping his feet under him as the therapists help move his legs. He's sweating when it's over, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, and he lets them think it's just from exertion. 

Liam's waiting in the lobby when he gets out. 

"Hiya, mum," Niall says, trying for a smile when he sees him. "Thought you were off today." 

"I am," Liam says. "But I just got out of school. Wanted to see what you were up to." 

"I'm smelly. Need a shower and to do some homework."

Liam wrinkles his nose. "Still can't get my head around this homework-without-class business." 

Niall shrugs. "Wanna come back? Help me do American History?"

"Yeah," Liam laughs, "my best subject."

"Is it?"

"Fuck no." 

Niall snorts in spite of his commitment to his black mood, and it nudges at some of the ache inside him, easy and gentle and all the worse for it. He shrugs. "C'mon, then."

Liam drives him the thirty seconds down to the brownstone, and they park in the alley with the ivy, which is dry and curling with the cold.

Niall sets him up in the kitchen with a Coke and a frozen pizza and a general free reign of the house while he goes to have a shower. He still has to sit on the plastic handicap seat across the tub for most of it, not wanting to risk slipping and falling. He's sick of this, not being able to use his leg properly, being away from D.C. and from his friends. The phone call to Louis has darkened everything, bringing all the unhealthy shit in his brain to the fore.

He knows what he has to do, though, by the time he gets out of the bathroom.

"Hey Leem," he says when he comes back into the kitchen. Liam's playing a game on his phone on top of Niall's history textbook. He brightens when he looks up at Niall, and he's probably about to say something that'll make this harder, so Niall doesn't give him the chance.

"So, I can't, um," he takes a deep breath. "I can't do this. I really, really wanna be friends with you. But… I can't, like, date you."

Liam's face falls almost comically. It's awful how sweet he is, how kind. Louis wasn't anything like this. But somehow he's what Niall wants. 

"Oh," Liam says. "Um, okay. Are you -- is it 'cause you're, like, straight?"

Niall laughs. "No," he sighs, sitting down at the kitchen table. It's funny, saying that out loud. He hasn't done that much before, has just kind of let things happen as they happen. "It _is_ the other one you're gonna ask, though."

"Someone else?" Liam says quietly. 

"Right." 

"Oh." Liam's eyes have gone round and upset, and he's not looking at Niall. "Here?"

Niall shakes his head. "You know when you asked me who I was always texting, who made me look… like that?"

"Yeah," Liam whispers down at the table. 

"I met him right before I came up here," Niall says. "And I just… it just kind of stuck." He swallows.

Liam looks up then. "What's his name?" he asks.

"Louis." 

"Louis," Liam repeats. "Alright. Well. Bit embarrassing for me, then, innit?" He's not being a dick, Niall can tell; he's just saying. 

"No, no, it's not," Niall says. "It's me, I mean, I'm the one who should… I shouldn't have even let you, like, kiss me at all. I'm sorry. I am." 

Liam huffs out a little laugh. "Yeah. Well, there it is, then." 

_Seems like it_ , Niall remembers Louis saying. "Yeah," he murmurs. "But you're still all I've got up here, so -- can we just… are we gonna be alright?"

Liam's smile starts small in the corner of his mouth, then spreads until it's almost normal-sized, and it's such a relief. It lifts Niall, too, lifts the air in the room, lifts him just a little ways out of the depression of the past day. "Yeah," Liam says bracingly. "We'll be alright." 

They settle it over FIFA, and Liam's only looking at him a little sad, from the corner of his eye, when he thinks Niall can't see. It's a fresh cut, still, Niall thinks. Like anything, it'll need some time. 

That night, when Liam's hugged him goodbye, Niall takes down Louis' postcard from the wall and turns it over in his hands, reads the few words on it again and again, thinks them back like he can tell Louis he wishes he was here, too, all the way across the country. _I really do. I really do._

He texts him, close to midnight:

_i broke it off with liam_  
 _thats physio boy. it hadnt even started really_  
 _if you wanna talk im here._

But Louis, apparently, does not want to talk. Before he goes to bed, Niall puts the postcard in his sock drawer, way, way at the back.

// part three //

Things actually aren't bad after that. Niall dons his customary fallback footballer costume for Halloween -- amended this year to be a footballer on injury leave, to incorporate his crutches -- and goes trick-or-treating in Jamaica Plain with Liam, in impressive form as Batman, and Liam's rowdy friends. There's a slick coating of wet leaves all over the ground, and Liam only apologizes a couple of times for slinging his arm around Niall's waist to keep him from falling. Niall can tell he's getting used to thinking of them as friends again, after that brief time spent somewhere else. But he is respecting Niall's wishes, which is really, awfully nice.

Boston sinks into November like an ice bath -- frigid wind everywhere, all of a sudden, the cold penetrating and relentless, making Niall's surgery scar chafe and ache. 

Halfway through the month, though, he walks on the treadmill without help for the first time. So that's something. 

Bobby indulges them in a couple of beers in the brownstone to celebrate, and Niall lies in bed later on, blinking up at his phone from his back like he does in PT. He's tipsy and he wants to call Louis and tell him: _They told me to try walking on my own, and I thought they were crazy. And then I just did it, just like that. I was so happy. Thought I was gonna cry right there in the gym._

But he doesn't call, because the version of Louis in his head has so little to do anymore with the one he knew in real life, more than two months ago now. In the absence of the real thing, he's invented a version of Louis to live with, one with all the blank spots filled in -- a Louis who'd be proud of him for getting better, one who'd want to know it all. A Louis who'd give Niall a kiss through the phone for doing so well. Who would have made an effort to stay in Niall's life. 

The next day Niall wakes up slow before sunrise to find snow on the ground. There's more still falling, drifting through the pooled light of the streetlamps and the near-bare branches of the trees. It's silent outside, and completely beautiful, like being inside a snowglobe. The cobblestone sidewalks, usually the bane of Niall's shaky-footed existence, are sugar-dusted and pristine in the predawn dark. Boston seems made for the snow, so much more than D.C., where everything shuts down for half an inch of sleet. 

Deep down Niall thinks it again, because he's still on his tear from last night, that he wishes Louis could see this -- wishes he could be here, instead of whatever arid, monochrome part of the country he's in now. This looks like the winter should, rich and starkly colored, like it's Christmas that's around the corner instead of Thanksgiving. Niall's actually going home for that long weekend with his Da, because the lads are off school and he misses them, and there's no therapy appointments over the holiday anyway.

He falls back asleep and it's not so pretty when he wakes up in the daytime. A small army of snowplows have already shoved up slushy grey snowbanks along the curbs, and Niall's in despair over the idea of walking to the hospital in this. 

"I could wear my cleats," he tries with Bobby over breakfast. 

"Did you bring those?"

"No..."

"That's alright. I'll drive you. I can be late." Niall tries to wave him off, but then he nearly slips the second he walks out the front door, so he shuts up. They move his appointments to the afternoon after that, so Bobby can come home from work and then bring Niall to and from the hospital. There's only four weeks left, and after that Niall's going home for good. 

They take him out in the parking lot that day and practice shuffling around in the snow, even though he insists it never does this in Washington, which is a total lie and everyone knows it. He clings onto his therapists' arms, feeling low and ill, like it's one step forward, two steps back with getting better. 

But by the end of the week they're having a snowball fight and he's keeping his footing. And he's starting to hope that he might be okay. 

They set off in the morning dark the following Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving. Niall can see the North Star above them -- it's bitterly cold and clear, with snow a foot high on the sides of the southbound highway -- and he follows it, cheek fogging up the window, until the sun comes up. 

It's a weird, momentary return to reality -- Niall knows his time in Boston will fly after this, but he's still got to go back, still hasn't brought more than a backpack of clothes with him for the weekend. He and Bobby play eye spy and license plate poker and listen to the radio for the eight-hour drive. Niall's so excited to pass New York City and hit the Jersey Turnpike and then Baltimore and finally the District line that he hardly thinks of Louis, of how he won't be there when they get back.

Being back in the lobby of their building at the end of the day is like a sigh of relief. Home, if only for a few days. 

Niall looks around, like Louis might be there somewhere, as though he was just late coming to meet them the day they left. He thinks he should have known then how it was going to turn out. That Louis' promises were never more than empty. It's painful to think about, but luckily the doorman's there as a distraction.

Niall spends about five minutes brushing off compliments about how well he's walking and how you can hardly tell, and how's all that snow up North treating you, and what, are you gonna be a Sox fan now, or what's the soccer team -- football, I guess you call it -- the Revolution? Niall laughs through the whole monologue, says if he's got to pick one American footie team it's not D.C. United or the Revs but the Seattle Sounders all the way, baby, geography be damned. Then Bobby's herding him into the elevator. 

"You got a letter," he says, bemused, as they crank up to the fourteenth floor. Niall figures it's college mail or something -- he let it all keep coming here, since all his applications are due after Christmas -- but it's not. The envelope's hand-addressed. It's from Louis.

The shock is compounded by where he is as he reads the name in the upper-left, above a California street address, since the elevator's where it all began. He can remember Louis sitting where his dad's standing now, the cuffs of his jeans rolled up, the press of his eyes through the dark. The way his voice had gone so serious when he'd said, _You'll be okay. Get through it together, won't we._ Like he just knew. 

Niall barely uses his crutches on the way to the door of their apartment, isn't thinking about his steps or the familiar smells or even the view of the city inside. Bobby's eyeing him, confused, but he mumbles an excuse that's barely English and goes into his room and shuts the door.

It's on two sheets of lined paper, torn from a spiral notebook and filled with Louis' oddly curling little-boy handwriting, some bits crossed out and rewritten, the words packed in. The date at the top says October 29.

_Dear Nialler,_

_Right so I was a bit of a prick, wasn't I? I think you're not going to get this until you come home -- Xmas?? -- did you know my birthday's Xmas eve? I think you do because we talked about our birthdays on yours last month. Anyway I don't know when you're reading this but back here in the past -- time travel letter! -- it's been a week or 2 since we talked on the phone about your boy in Boston. I got your texts. I'm sorry I didn't answer. I've been a bit fucked up over it all._

_Here's what it is though. I like you so much more than I realised until you weren't with me anymore. It's crazy how quick it happened and then you were gone, and I was gone, and it was like I thought that all wouldn't happen for some reason? And I missed you so much every time we talked last month. And then you called about Liam and I was so angry that you hadn't fucking read my mind and realised I was stupid over you from the second we met._

_I thought it would be easier to just say enough with it and not even try, because it's like I said… why try when you barely know the person, when you're moving in totally opposite directions? It just seemed like it would hurt more than it felt good, know what I mean?_

_Except you probably don't, since you wanted to try and I blew you off. And I haven't called and I know I'm not going to, I'm just sending this because I'm scared if I'm honest. Need to give myself a bit of time. I'm scared you won't want to pick me back up and scared you will. And I just never thought I could have someone like you, when my life was as fucked up as it was when we met. Reckon I needed to figure out it wasn't worth throwing away just because it wasn't convenient. Because it's what's made me happiest, even just the little thing we had._

_So I dunno where I want to go from here exactly. But I suppose it's wherever you're going. Or however you're feeling. I just want to give this a chance._

_Unfortunately I'm now in San Francisco and you're still up in Boston and sometime in the next 1-2 months you're gonna get this letter. Write me back if you like. I'd like you to. Address on the envelope is where we're staying for a while. For real this time, not like DC where I was full of shit and led you on. Sorry about that, by the way. Though it doesn't really help that we've finally put down roots out here. Mum's got a job though, and she's really happy for the first time in like 3 years. And I might try to start school again soon. So those are the biggest things for us._

_Last thing is I've been writing some more lyrics since we left DC... and what the hell, here's a copy of something I've been working on. It's not about us --_

and here he draws his silly face --

_\-- but it's not not either. I've got a tune in mind. Maybe we can try it together the next time I see you. Worth hoping for, right?_

_Louis xx_

Niall reads it through twice, then flips to the song on the back page. He can feel his heart swelling in his chest as he looks over the words, until it's almost painful: _I wanna be yours, don't you wanna be mine? / I don't wanna get lost in the dark of the night / This time I'm ready to run, / wherever you are is the place I belong._

He picks up his phone then puts it down, then reads the letter again, stands up and looks around his room, dazed. The last time he'd been here, there had been candles on the living room floor from their power outage poker night, and his sheets had still smelled of Louis. The intermittent subletters have done the laundry, so that's gone now. But Niall can remember how Louis looked, the way it felt to touch him here, to kiss him on the edge of this bed. The breeze from the open window in August. How home felt with Louis. How it felt to say goodbye -- unfinished, like neither of them could admit it was real. 

He doesn't call. Instead he picks up a pen and starts to write: all of it, how he hadn't stopped thinking about Louis since they met, how hadn't known what making it work would look like but he'd wanted so badly to try. How it had felt like there was too much distance between them to cross, and how he knows now there's no such thing.

He talks about getting better, tells him about walking all by himself, tells him everything -- tells him he's learned you can decide to put yourself in a mess and you can decide to get yourself out of it, tells him he thinks Louis is so much stronger than he knows, tells him, cheeky, that he's the best kisser Niall's ever met. That he knows they only really knew each other for a day, but it feels like so much longer. 

And he says that he'll be back in Boston for a month and then home again for the rest of the school year, at least. That if Louis can find a way to make it out, Niall will be there, or maybe he can go to California somehow, or they can meet in the middle, and that no matter what Niall knows they'll be okay. 

*

He graduates from physio with flying colors in mid-December. They even get him a little cake, and the reception staff and Liam and the other patients around all hug him. All the therapists says he was the most fun they ever had with a treadmill patient.

"You can do the other knee if you like, give you something to keep you busy next year," he says, earning him a gentle punch in the arm from one of his team and a proud, careworn shake of his dad's head. 

_L: How'd it go?? x_  
 _N: doneeeee!!!!!!!!!!!_  
 _L: Fuck yes !! drinks on me_  
 _N: :) :) :)_

It turns out texting Louis about this kind of stuff is that easy. The letters opened the floodgates between them -- a call, finally, when Louis got his reply, and more calls and texts since, and everything that should have been a constant all along. Liam tells Niall he seems really happy, like even he can't be mad about it. Niall blushes and apologizes, stupidly, and Liam gives him a noogie, and everything is good, and ending. 

It's the week before Christmas when they pack up the brownstone and all of Niall's out-of-use mobility aids and load up the car again, like they did four months prior. Boston's in the full swing of the holiday, lights and holly strung up everywhere, phantom carols playing in Niall's head every time he steps outside. Liam's going back to England for the break, to see his grandparents. He promises Niall they can commiserate over college apps online, and check their lists against each other and generally just make it work, as friends. That they'll see each other. That it'll be alright. Niall hugs him for a long time before they drive away. 

I-95 South's a parking lot, so Niall has plenty of opportunity to say goodbye to Boston as they skyline recedes slowly behind them. He sends Louis a Snapchat of it with a big rainbow sadface, and Louis replies with a selfie, cross-eyed, tongue out -- bring me back sometime ! 

D.C.'s a little slushy when they get in that night. The Christmas spirit here is evident without being overbearing like it was up north, and Niall breathes in deep on the sidewalk outside their building. The air here's earthier than it was in New England -- a little rougher, warmer even in the winter, so familiar it makes Niall feel like he's waking up after a long, weird dream.

The doorman's helping Bobby with their bags while Niall checks the mail. There's a little yellow envelope in there, postmarked from California but without a return address. He's already smiling while he opens it. Louis thinks he's so fucking sneaky. 

Inside's just a key, and a post-it note: _IF: DEC. 19 P.M., THEN: ROOF :)_.

Niall freezes like he's been turned to stone. It is December 19, p.m. And he knows this key. He remembers. 

He takes the elevator with his dad to the top floor and makes it about five steps into their apartment before he says he wants to take a spin around the block and say hello to the neighborhood. Bobby shrugs, busy turning on lights and warming up cold appliances. Niall's out the door without taking his coat off. 

He climbs the stairs that dead end in the door to the roof, slowly but easily, with no pain in his knee. It's an improvement on the last time he had to do this. The doorknob's cold to the touch, but the key goes easily when he slips it in. 

The outer edge of the building is strung with white fairy lights, like it is every year, and there's an inch of wet snow on the rooftop, and the footprints in it lead to Louis. 

"Hi," he says, voice rasping so sweetly on the sound. He's real, and he's right here, his hands in the pockets of a denim jacket with a furry collar, rosy-cheeked and smiling in the night air. Niall stops dead, mouth open.

"Mum surprised me," Louis goes on, fidgeting a bit under Niall's stare. "Bought me a round-trip flight as an early Christmas present. I'd told her -- I mean, she knows about this. 'Bout you." He laughs, shrugging. "And we knew you were coming back today, so I sent the key ahead. I made a copy back before she got fired so I could sneak up while she was working. Worked out well in the end."

"How… when did you get here?" Niall asks weakly. 

Louis grins. "It was your Snapchat! I mean, I got in this morning, but I timed it out with that Snap you sent me from Boston this morning. I did the Google traffic map for when you'd be back and everything." 

"That's so ridiculous," Niall says, but he's starting to laugh. 

Louis straightens up a bit, chin in the air. "I think I did pretty well, Niall. I've only been waiting up here, like, half an hour."

"Half an hour," Niall repeats, dazed, still laughing a little. He takes a slippery step forward, then another, less careful. "What if we hadn't checked the mail?"

"I know you better than that." Louis' eyes are gleaming in the half-dark. He watches Niall move, biting his lip. 

"Look how well you're walking," he says softly. 

Niall runs to him. He slips, predictably, on the last step, and lands square in Louis' arms. They're inches apart when he gets his feet under him again, inches away, and he's laughing before Louis is, and he throws his arms around him and holds him like he's never going to let go. 

"You came back," he whispers into the furry collar of his jacket. 

"Yeah," Louis says. His hand is in Niall's hair. "Just couldn't leave off like we did, y'know?"

"Yeah." Niall pulls back, and Louis is so close, and there's suddenly no reason not to kiss him. That's the best part -- that after everything, Niall knows what they are. What they have been all along. 

He kisses Louis with his lips already parted, their faces both cold with the gathering night, the exposure up on the roof. Louis kisses him fiercely, just pressing their mouths hard together before Niall feels the slip of his hot tongue. He touches Louis' hair, longer than in the summer, presses him back against the light-strung lintel of the roof, kisses him while the snow starts to fall.

After, they stand hip to hip against the edge of the roof, Louis with an arm around Niall's waist like he's afraid he'll fall. He's managed to smuggle a bottle of champagne, somehow, and they pass it back and forth while they look out at the illuminated Capitol and the sparkling city branching out from it. The sky is mauve with electric light and drifting snow, one of Niall's favorite colors, all that quiet fullness.

"Wish there were stars," Louis mumbles into his shoulder. " _Our_ star. I always thought of you when I spotted it, you know, wherever I was."

"Polaris?"

Louis nods, proud. "But it's ruining my plans, this winter bullshit."

Niall laughs. "You had plans."

"Of course I did. I always have plans. Thought you knew that about me."

"Yeah," Niall says. "But this is better."

They stay up there talking and looking out at the city, frozen and full of light and color now. It's such a change from the hot blackout night they spent here in August. Niall loves that progression. Loves having Louis manage to stay through everything, a constant star despite his every effort not to be. 

He's got to introduce him to his Da after that, which is weird and hilarious and thankfully doesn't involve coming out, since Niall did that with his dad a couple of years ago. But it's agreed that Louis can sleep on the couch until he flies back to San Francisco in a few days' time. They're allowed into Niall's room anyway, as long as they're audibly doing something G-rated and responsible. Niall flushes and thwacks his dad on the arm for that, and Bobby and Louis are both laughing as they retreat. 

So they end up playing Louis' song on Niall's guitar, reconciling their different ideas for chords and rhythms, and it's _good_ , and the emotion in Louis' face at hearing it feels like it's leaving a permanent mark on Niall. They sing it together, sitting with their knees touching on Niall's bed while snow collects on the windowsill and the fairy lights outside twinkle on. 

When it's over they're just looking at each other, and Niall doesn't know what happens next -- what happens when Louis has to go back to California in the next few days, what happens next spring and next fall.

But it's not like it was four months ago. It's scary in a way that's worth it -- then and now and everything in between, the foundations of them, finally holding solid. It's Louis' eyes fixed on him, and Louis' little smile, telling him the truth, that they'll find a way to make it work.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr [@1dgaf](http://1dgaf.tumblr.com).


End file.
